Thursday, July 22, 2010

Sweet Enough?

I was at Costco the other day, when a nifty little book caught my eye. Sweet Poison. Nice title. And about a subject close to my heart - sugar. About how our bodies use is, about how we eat waaaay to much for our bodies to cope with. This book might have been written for me. I lurve sugar. To me it's comfort. It's birthday parties with home cooked sponge or mum's lemon delicious pudding. It's sitting in front of the fire with mum chatting until she said 'i wish there was something nice to eat', only to have dad bring out a block of peppermint cadbury he'd squirrelled away for just such an occasion. It's lopsided, chocolate soaked lamingtons in my lunchbox and fresh baked biscuits picked off the cooling tray. When I'm sad I eat sweet things. When I'm angry I eat sweet things. When I'm bored...well you get the picture. It was my all-rounder medicine. Although, come to think of it, it never actually fixed any of those things.I read Sweet Poison in a night, stayed up late with the lamp down by the side of the bed. Gulped it down like a cinnamon donut. And have been sugar free ever since. Ten days. Not that I'm counting or anything.Cold turkey. Because I'm pretty sure that if I don't do something soon, I'm going to have another spare tyre and type 2 diabetes. I don't like the sound of that. I also don't like feeling beholden to a condiment.And I am beholden, pretty much all of the time.I proved it in the first two days when I realised that if something didn't have sugar in it, I really wasn't interested in eating it. Coffee? I've discovered I don't particularly have the palate for it unless I can heap sugar into it. Who knew?Every day so far has been a battle. And it's only been a week.But I have to do cold turkey, because I'm that kind of person. If I muddy the boundaries, I'll be back to muffins for breakfast and hot chocolate with marshmallows for morning tea in a split second. I don't know what I'm going to do the first time I get angry, or bored or sad. Perhaps actually try to deal with it? Novel thought.

I can't say I've got heaps more energy. Yet, anyway. I can say I've already lost 3 kilos. I can say that my skin is soft and clear now. I can say that the second day migraine was a corker. I can say fruit never tasted so good and so fresh and lovely. so send me good sugar-free thoughts, I need the green vibes to keep me going!

3 comments:

I don't have that much of a sweet tooth - I rarely eat cake etc - but I do have enough of a fondness for choc and ice cream, and like you I don't like coffee without sugar. Enough that I can imagine it would be pretty damn hard to give it up.

Well done you.

PS, a couple of weeks until I move back into the neighbourhood and become a cafe regular again. For my coffee. With sugar.